ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things

August 24, 2017

This is a doll and this doll wants to make a nest with you. That is why it is called a nesting doll. You have heard some other reasons maybe but here we are talking about a nesting doll that wants to get cozy with you in the most homey way. This doll rolls into your life quite round and shiny, I mean it is not edgy or rough at all, it is just rolling along with whatever you want to do. This doll is agreeable. This doll is also lovely and just having it around makes things more attractive. Every day you look at it you feel a bit happier. The surface is so shiny that it reflects you. Like a spoon, except instead of a distorted pickle of a nose you look even better than in a mirror. One day while gazing at your reflection in the doll, you notice that there's a small crack in the shiny surface and when you run your thumbnail into the groove you find that the doll breaks quite neatly and deliberately in half and inside of it there is another doll. The second doll is pretty much exactly like the first doll, it is smaller obviously since it was fitted inside of the first one but it has the same happy smile, the same shiny surface, the same easy balance. The same reflective quality, although in this one your eyes are even more thoughtful, your smile more pleasing. And the fact that it's smaller means you can almost fit her in your hand now, hold her on your open palm, show her to other people. Use words like mine. This one is also cracked and since you opened the first doll so easily and no harm came of it it's not long before you crack the second one open too. Inside is another doll, the same in most ways because this is a metaphor and metaphors involve a certain amount of consistency in order to earn your trust. But a little different, because obviously this is a metaphor founded in truth -- each time you open the doll you have, you find another one inside, and each one is smaller and it is easier to imagine fitting her into your life simply from that point of view, but also, you can't help but notice that each subsequent doll is a little harder to open, that each one is rougher, less smooth. And each one is less perfect or to put it another way more flawed. The lines less straight, the paint wavery in places. It's difficult, probably, to paint really well on something so small, though you've seen drawings on grains of rice so it's more like poor workmanship. The third doll's eyes are just slightly smaller, but it looks almost like she's been crying, and your reflection as you look at her seems not quite so attractive; it seems more like how you really look. Still, eventually you get to a doll that fits right inside your pocket, part of your daily life if you want, there whenever you reach for her. You realize that the larger, prettier dolls were always rolling away from your fingers, more than you could hold, but this one is just the right size for you and you still like looking at yourself in that shiny surface and you like that this one seems more real, not quite so flashy as the first, like a doll you almost don't feel weird about loving. What happens next is predictable I guess, since even metaphors can't go on forever. You see the crack, you open the doll, etc. until you're at the last doll, the one that isn't hiding anything more. This doll isn't even a doll, it's a mess, a paint blob and a poorly lathed imitation of the others. There is nothing to love here. You can barely work up pity. You can't throw it away so you put it back inside the previous doll and try to pretend you didn't see it. But you did, you saw it because you looked, and now you know what's inside, rattling around inside the doll that comforts your fingers when you're nervous, inside the doll that reflects your better self, inside the doll that just rolled into your life and made everything, including you, more attractive. She opened because you broke her open and now you know. So what happens now.

August 12, 2017

So it's the Ionian Sea and my love of cultures nurtured at a crossroads is getting satisfied. A group of children throwing globs of wet sand at each other, until one of them catches it in the eye and cries. At the canal of love either lovelorn women cure their sorrow or couples seal their promises, depending on who.you ask. Maybe both. A man out near the buoy teaching his daughter or girlfriend to float, the bright pink of her swimsuit flashing every time the water rises. Kalami was made famous by Henry Miller and by Lawrence Durrell, who was my introduction to Rashomon storytelling. The tops of my feet already have the unfreckled lines of sandal straps. Corfu Town is a UNESCO site. The beach umbrellas, spelled ambrela on this beach, advertise Ben and Jerry's and Nestlé. It's almost too hot for ice cream. I can see Albania across the water, dim in the heat haze. Once only noble families whose names were on the list could walk on this promenade. A man comes out of the water and stands drying in the evening sun, tells us he loves America, Al Pacino, Saturday Night Fever, Harrison Ford. One last dip in the sea and it's time for dinner, something with feta and tomatoes that taste like rich sunlight. It's only the first day.

August 04, 2017

Last night I went out with a friend and we talked about the things we used to do to amuse ourselves and why don't we do them anymore. Mainly I feel like my time should be spent on something Useful and I now know that the raindrops don't really care if I moderate their races, no matter how intense they seem to be. I did officiate on the bus window today, for old times' sake, and yeah, I still got it.

I used to imagine that somebody might be interested in my every thought. I imagined biographers following me about, intent on capturing the very fascinating nature of me. I developed the habit of speaking aloud as I did things if I was alone, in case the biographers were there but invisible, and I still have that habit even though obviously nobody is there, no biographers and probably not even Bruno Ganz. It has been largely a relief to realize that there is not and will not be anybody with a microphone curious to know how I wash windows or why my closet is organized in a particular way or any of the other things I've caught myself narrating aloud in the last while. I think at this point it's just habit, and maybe it's also to ensure that my mind doesn't wander off mid-task, as it is wont to do without some guidance. But I don't really think anybody's interested, even if somebody were there.

In fact lately I have been thinking about attention and interest a lot. I am deeply and sometimes awkwardly interested in people. Partly it's just cause people are super interesting and partly because I believe that people enjoy and rarely get that attention so if I like someone I like to pay attention to them as a kind of gift. In the love languages TIME is my number one and so this is what I give out, time (sorry if you like presents; I just can't). I read people's facebook pages if I know I will see them so I am caught up on what they are presenting and I also will re-read emails so that they are fresh in my memory. Apparently this level of attention can be a little... intense? ... but whatever, I'm closing out my 40s and I'm not wasting time changing anything I don't actively regret.

Sometimes I feel so much that other people are interesting that I can't really say much about myself, nothing meaningful and definitely nothing meaningless. I can talk about how my day was but that's not what I mean. I mean I have all this crap in my head but how do I work it into a conversation. The closet is organized by color and then subcategorized by type of garment. In drawers, I roll socks, underwear, and pajamas; I fold jeans and sweaters. The Shack is one of the worst books I ever read but I kept a copy of it in case I ever meet somebody who wants to hate-read a book. I have not yet repaired the thresholds in this apartment because it's the last thing to do and once that's done I am afraid that I will have to move. I almost never kick the covers off no matter how hot it gets, because of, you know, monsters. Is this interesting? I'm not sure. There is a part of me, a small arrogant ugly part, that is a bit hurt when someone doesn't find it so, and covers my mouth with its greasy hand so we don't get hurt again. On the other hand, there is a better, growing, nobler part of me that has learned be pleasantly surprised if you read it and leave it at that. Hello, you, reading this. Thanks.

Next week I am going with one of my dearest and oldest friends to Corfu. I plan to eat basically a pound of feta drizzled in olive oil every day, and if I don't get relaxed enough to start writing interesting things again it won't be for lack of trying.